It’s Academy Award season, so we’re going to talk movies and entertainment with Jennifer Sargent, CEO of Hitfix.com.
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Ah, the movie season. It’s been a good one, filled with blockbusters, dramas, and a controversy surrounding the producers of “The Hurt Locker.” I recorded a podcast on March 2 with entrepreneur Jennifer Sargent, and we discuss everything from the favorites for who will be thanking the academy, to how different industries approach piracy.
Topics covered:
Describe your unique path from Electrical Engineering student to the CEO of a cool entertainment company.
Jennifer explains that she wanted a more social career than being stuck in a room as an EE looking at microprocessors, so her path led her to investment banking, focusing on the intersection of media and technology. She later went to Doubleclick to learn about monetizing online brands, but wanted to start her own company.
Like any good entrepreneur, she focused on how she could use her skill set to work on something she was passionate about. After Harvard Business School, she worked at the parent company of Variety, growing the traffic on entertainment sites, and loved the combination of entertainment and technology.
She founded Hitfix in December 2008 to bridge the gap between gossip sites (like TMZ) and trade publications (like Variety).
In a crowded entertainment area online, what does Hitfix do to distinguish itself?
Two tracks
1.     Team of proven journalists that break news about TV, Music, and Movie coverage (insider scoop without the gossip)
2.     Event forecast calendar technology (location-based tool that lets users discover new events, set reminders, download to calendars, and sync news with events)
Example:Â The Spiderman franchise reboot. First they break the news: Tobey Maguire is out, shakeup of the storyline. Then, the event: Release date is no longer September 2010, instead, 2012. The action: Set your calendar!
It’s the dead of winter here, so to brighten things up we’re going to talk to the co-founder of Sunshine Suites, a unique office space for entrepreneurs.
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I’ve got a great interview today, a person that I was connected to through Gary Vaynerchuk on Twitter.
His name is Cheni Yerushalmi, he’s the co-founder of a business called Sunshine Suites, and you should download the podcast just to hear me mispronounce his name (I think I was a little better by the time I signed off).
For most people across the country, we’re trapped in bland cubicles like worker bees for 8 hours a day, with many of us aspiring to be entrepreneurs so we can launch the proverbial startup from our garage.
But I think this company has found a great middle ground, giving ambitious new companies a unique place to work and grow their business.
In the interview we cover topics such as:
- Getting started
Like many business ventures, the idea for Sunshine Suites was born out of frustration. Cheni and his best friend/co-founder couldn’t understand why it was so difficult for small businesses to get cool, low-cost office space in Manhattan. So they did something about it.
Full Transcript of the Interview with Adam Wallace and Brian Simpson from The Roger Smith Hotel
Recorded in person in the 16th floor penthouse at The Roger Smith Hotel, Manhattan, New York
November, 2009
Jim Hopkinson, Wired’s Marketing Guy
Adam Wallace, New Media Director
Brian Simpson, Director of Social Hospitality
Sarah Prevette and Elizabeth King (Giggling in background)
Hi, this is Jim Hopkinson, Wired’s Marketing Guy, bringing you the marketing trends that matter. Welcome!
My guests today are Adam Wallace and Brian Simpson of the Roger Smith Hotel – two of the leaders using social media to build community, grow revenue, and truly create world-wide awareness for their business.
Jim Hopkinson: Hey everybody, today we have Adam Wallace and Brian Simpson of the Roger Smith Hotel, New York’s hip social media hotel. Adam’s the new media marketing manager while his partner in crime, Brian, is the assistant food and beverage director. They are marketing masterminds behind a hotel that promotes brand by personally connecting with its fans on all the major social networking platforms. So, welcome guys.
Adam Wallace and Brian Simpson: Thanks so much, Jim.
JH: So, why don’t we tell your background; how did you get here? Adam, why don’t you start out?
AW: Sure, I’ve been at the Roger Smith Hotel for three years now. I started out doing a video-based website for the hotel, working with John Knowles, my cousin who’s a filmmaker, and has a small production company called, “Panman Productions.” We did a video-based interactive site called, “Roger Smith News” for the hotel. And my position has evolved over the years, and our online presence has evolved, still doing a lot with video; that’s evolved to a blog now which is, “Rogersmithlife.com.
Hi, this is Jim Hopkinson, Wired’s Marketing Guy, bringing you the marketing trends that matter. Welcome!
Today’s topic is Auto-Tune, an interview with the Gregory Brothers from ‘Auto-Tune the News.’
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Jim Hopkinson: Oh, yeah! [Auto-Tune] Hey everyone, this is Jim. Today’s episode is a fun one. I’ll keep the intro fairly short – there are three main points you need to know:
“Nobody teaches you this stuff” is a pretty good platform to build a business on.
Like a car mechanic or farmer or entrepreneur that creates an invention because they weren’t able to buy the item they needed to get the job done in a store (example: Daniel Odio’s Phone2Projector), many websites and blogs are founded because someone realized there wasn’t a great resource out there that was providing quality information about a topic that was important to the user.
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That’s how Alexa Von Tobel, founder and CEO of LearnVest.com got started. Well-educated and coming off a stint at Morgan Stanley and tech company Drop.io, she didn’t feel there was a website filling the need of relevant financial life-planning information aimed at women aged 20-35.
So she did something unconventional (perhaps the one thing they wouldn’t recommend on LearnVest), dropping out of Harvard Business School to launch a startup during a recession.
But the timing could end up just right, as we talk about the major shakeups in the financial world, from the bad (Wall Street) to the good (Mint.com being acquired for $170 million).
It’s sort of like your TV news as you always wished to receive it… with a poppin’ beat and a happenin’ bass line .”
That’s how The Gregory Brothers describe their series of videos, Auto-Tune the News. I’ve been following the series for months now, and tweeting and forwarding them to anyone looking for funny entertainment at the intersection of pop culture, music, and technology.
Download the podcast from iTunes, or play it below:
For those unfamiliar, there are 3 main points you need to know:
# 1) There’s a digital process in music called Auto-Tune. Think of it as photoshop for your voice. Almost every artist makes small touches to enhance the product, while others use it liberally to radically alter the original recording. You might originally know the effect from Cher’s 1998 Grammy-award winning, multi-platinum dance song “Believe.”
# 2)Â Modern artists like T-Pain have brought it back big time, not only with award-winning songs, but also collaborating with Saturday Night Live for their popular digital short “I’m on a boat,” with Jimmy Kimmel for skits on his show, and he has an iPhone app called “I am T-Pain.” More on that in a second.
# 3) A Brooklyn-based band called The Gregory Brothers have made a hilarious string of viral videos called “Auto-Tune the News,” which mix political and pop culture news footage with a poppin beat and a happenin’ bass line, all set to Auto-Tune. I interviewed Andrew, Michael, and Evan on the podcast.
Auto-Tune the News #2 is one of my favorites, and the original where Katie Couric utters the now-famous line “Very Thin Ice.” As you’ll see, the brothers superimpose themselves into the newscasts, wearing outfits ranging from hip hop garb to an angry gorilla.
As a service (torture) to my readers, I show how Auto-Tune can take a hopelessly horrible singer like myself, and at least give you a laugh. Play the podcast to see how my opening intro sounds after running it through T-Pain’s Auto-Tune iPhone app.
If there are two other words that best describe internet marketing in the last few years, I don’t know what they are. As a marketing guy at Wired.com, I must come across that term 100 times a week. Maybe 1,000.
It’s not shocking that I’m immersed in social media because I’m directly dealing with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and reddit.
It’s not surprising when I read about strategies that 5 person tech startups, apartment-based entrepreneurs, digital ad agencies, and veteran web-based companies are rolling out.
But what I really find fascinating is when non-traditional companies embrace — and dominate — social media.
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I think about some of the random companies that really ‘get’ social media, and when you think about it objectively, it can actually be amusing. What if you did this quiz just 2 years ago, before the Twitter explosion, asking people who they thought would have millions of followers.
Hi, this is Jim Hopkinson, Wired’s Marketing Guy, bringing you the marketing trends that matter.
Today I interview the CEO of spreadshirt.com. We talk about:
- T-shirts as a marketing tool
- Why bacon is the key to long life
- Three keys to the Iron Man Triathlon
- Two T-shirt slogans that will guarantee a conversation
Jim Hopkinson: Hi everyone, my guest today is Jana Eggers, who is the CEO of Spreadshirt, a creative apparel platform that inspires people to create, buy or sell individual fashion. Jana was named Global CEO in August of 2007, and splits her time between Boston, Germany, and other cities around the world.
Welcome, Jana. Where are you calling us from today?
Jana Eggers: I’m actually in Boston today.
JH: Excellent. So, tell us about your background – before you got to Spreadshirt; you seem like a perfect guest for geeks at Wired. I saw you have some background in math and computer science, and did some work at Lycos, which used to own Wired.com at one point. So, tell us about your career path.
JE: Yeah, I usually say I’m a big geek; I don’t have a small propeller, I have a big propeller [laughs]. So, yeah, my background is math and computer science, that was my schooling. I actually spent a few years out at Los Alamos at the National Laboratory doing computational chemistry work. I was looking for some theoretical maximum conductivity for polymers, doing work on supercomputers.
So, it was a lot of fun, I could talk about that for hours; it’s terrific work and wonderful people out there. But, what I really missed was business. I was raised by bankers and accountants, and I had a checkbook when I was about seven years old that they made me balance every week [laughs]. While I love the research science, I kind of miss that direct access to a bottom line that you had to have. So I ended up after wandering around grad school for a little while, saying, “Now I really needed to be in business.”
Has there ever been a better quote on the topic of longevity?
This means one of my favorite weekend activities in New York City, going to long brunches with friends… savoring a hot cup of coffee… debating the eggs vs. pancakes vs. french toast conundrum… and without fail, ordering a side of delicious, crispy bacon, is actually helping me live a long and fulfilling life.
- This is a quote of legends
– This is a quote that was tailor-made for bacon fans (and oh, there are many)
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In an interview with the The Hopkinson Report (read the full transcript of the Spreadshirt interview here), Jana tells how a deal they’ve done with CNN allows users to instantly take any headline that CNN runs and make it into a t-shirt. (Buy the bacon shirt here). They’ve also done a similar deal with reddit.com.
It’s just another way that users are getting customized, real-time products online. No longer do users need to watch network TV when they can make their own movies with a Flip Camera, iMovie, and YouTube. No longer do users need newspapers when they can write their own blog. And of course, your everyday marketing guy can create his own podcast for thousands to listen to.
With Spreadshirt, users no longer have to order huge quantities and guess on sizing to get a custom t-shirt created. In fact, I’ve been using Spreadshirt long before I was introduced to Jana, having created a Hopkinson Report T-shirt back in March.
I did it to do a little promotion while I was at SXSW and have kept it low-key, but if any fans out there want a unique t-shirt, you can check it out at TheHopkinsonReport.com/Store.
More than just a t-shirt
More than just the shirt itself, the great thing about it is that you can choose from several styles, from basic heavyweight T’s to American Apparel… from your standard cotton guy’s shirt, to the girly ones that have the little microsleeves… from long sleeve shirts to hoodies… in just about any color you want… and you can price it any way you want to.
Hi, this is Jim Hopkinson, Wired’s Marketing Guy, bringing you the marketing trends that matter. Welcome.
My guest today is Elizabeth King, author of, “Outsmarting the SAT.” We cover some fascinating stuff, whether you took the SAT back in the 90s, or you’re taking it next week.
Jim Hopkinson: Hi everyone, my guest today is Elizabeth King, an expert on the SAT and ACT Test, which means in Boston terms, “She is wicked, wicked, smaht.” Elizabeth tutors high school students preparing to take these tests; she helps them with their college applications materials, and, most importantly, she has written a groundbreaking book called, “Outsmarting the SAT.”
Welcome, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth King: Hi, Jim thanks for having me.
JH: OK. So, the SATs, this is a really stressful subject. So, say that you’re a 17 year old high school student, there’s all this pressure on this one test to get into the school you want to, in order to graduate, and get the job you wanted. It’s kind of a really stressful couple of hours, right?
“World’s Oldest Person Credits Bacon”
